Luat, runner-up to John Smith in the recent US Open, crushed Swede David Larsson, 8-4, while Gomez, a qualifier from Western Mindanao, shocked American Corey Deuel, 8-2, to make it to the Round of 64 beginning at 2 p.m. today.
The duo thus joined seven other RP bets in the knockout stage of the $400,000 event, led by 1999 champion Efren "Bata" Reyes, Francisco "Django" Bustamante, Marlon Manalo, Lee Van Corteza, Rudy Morta, Jeff de Luna and Ramil Gallego.
Corteza went on to sweep his own group yesterday, thus, like Luat and Gomez, will have a good chance at gaining top seeding in the knockout stage.
Other Filipinos still in contention for the next round were Jherome Peña, Gandy Valle, Dennis Orcollo and Renato Alcano.
Failing to make it past the group matches were Leonardo Andam, Antonio Lining, Santos Sambajon, Jose Parica, Israel Rota, Roland Garcia, Eduardo Villanueva and Pagulayan.
Pagulayan, who ruled the event in 2004 in Taiwan, suffered a heartbreaker to Lee, losing their hill-to-hill duel on a safety shot which the Taiwanese translated into an impeccable shot to salvage the match.
Lee, runner-up to Johnny Archer in the 1997 WPC, fashioned out a tricky combination to knock in the orange-4 ball and go on to seal the win.
"That’s what you call destiny. I’m not destined to make good in this competition," said Pagulayan.
An ailing Sambajon conceded the match to Scotland’s Pat Holtz after falling behind 2-4. The Filipino bet faced a tall task of chalking up no less than 8-1 to gain a slot in the Final 64 from group 23.
But Luat and Gomez had given the Filipino fans something to cheer about before the other local bets succumbed in defeats.
"I’m doing well and I’m confident I can go on winning," said Luat, who also topped the Jakarta leg of the recent San Miguel Asian Tour.
The 49-year-old veteran pool campaigner squeezed out an 8-7 decision over China’s Fu Jian-bo then outclassed German Oliver Ortmann, 8-1, before ripping Larsson for the sweep in Group 21.
Gomez duplicated Luat’s feat by rolling past Masaaki Tanaka of Japan, John Wins of Ireland and Deuel.
"I’m very happy. My effort is now paying off, kapalit ng dati kong trabaho," said Gomez, 29, a former ABS-CBN field correspondent in Zamboanga.
Gomez has become the tourney’s biggest surprise performer, being a mere qualifier in his very first international competition.
Taking early exit together with Pagulayan were Americans Mike Davis and Rodney Morris and the Netherlands’ Niels Feijen. Three-time champion Earl Strickland was to face Taiwanese Chen Ying-chieh in a knockout match late last night.
Other completed matches at presstime saw English Imran Majid win over Taiwanese Wang Hung-hsiang, 8-6; Indon Ricky Yang over Parica, 8-3; Finnish Mika Immonen over Lining, 8-6; France Vincent Facquel over Taiwanese Chen Yin-chieh, 8-0; German Oliver Ortmann over Chinese Fu Jian-bo, 8-7; Japanese Kunihiko Takahashi over De Luna, 8-6; Wims over Tanaka, 8-3; Singaporean Tan Tiong Boon over South African Zbynek Vaic, 8-7; Malaysian Patrick Ooi Fook Yuen over Greek Evangelous Veltas, 8-7, Taiwanese Liu Cheng-chuan over American Jeremy Jones, 8-3; and Malta’s Tony Drago over New Zealand Ceri Worts, 8-3.